I looked, and on the wall appeared a cross, also without a figure, but this too disappeared in a second.
The roar of the tempest still continued, and the booming of the guns. Sleep now was out of the question. I got up and dressed myself. Ryan, who appeared unable to speak or move, lay back in his bed, his eyes closed. I roused him up.
“Tell me, did you see him, did you see him?” he whispered, clutching convulsively my arm.
“Let us get up and go down to the guard room,” I said. “The day is breaking, and we are not likely to sleep any more, and you are ill.”
Ryan dressed himself, and we went down, he more dead than alive, to the guard room. His illness was manifest to all, and he was quickly restored by portion of the contents of a brandy flask which seemed to work wonders with him.
We did not sleep in the cell again, and the weather being very warm we were not sorry when sometime after we were ordered to the outlying posts of the left wing of our army.
Before we quitted the convent I paid a visit, in the daytime, to the cell. There was nothing about it to suggest a ghostly visitant; but, on looking at one of the end walls, I noticed the faint sign of a cross. I was considerably startled by it, but on closer examination, I discovered it was such a mark as anything placed against a wall for a long time generally leaves, less through its own action as to that of the atmosphere, on the uncovered portion of the walls. But it did seem a little strange that it should be on the very part of the wall on which I had seen the vision of a cross. Perhaps, I said to myself, Ryan had noticed this mark, and it worked in some way on his disordered imagination. But this could not explain the vision as seen by myself, either of the cross or of the Capuchin, and it was with a feeling akin to awe that I left the cell for the last time, wondering whether anything would ever occur which might throw a light on the mystery.
Ryan, who shared the bivouac with me, had begged me not to mention to anyone what he fancied (as he put it) he had seen, for I had not told him that I had seen anything, and, after my promise to this effect, he never alluded to the matter; but I noticed that, henceforth, he became, even for him, unusually reserved, and that there was a deep seated trouble in his eyes; but he continued to be attentive, more attentive, if possible, to me than before.
For some weeks we lay close to the outposts, chafing under the inactivity to which we were condemned. Meanwhile, the trenches were being pushed forward, and, at intervals, we saw the flash and heard the roar of the cannon from the ramparts; but this after a time ceased to have much interest for us. Occasionally there were rumours of an attempt about to be made by the enemy to revictual Barcelona, where provisions had run low; but they came to nothing, and they no longer served to rouse any hope of a brush with the Spaniards.